Oh snap... despite my assertion that Tecmo: Secret of the Stars is the worst RPG ever, Ashton had to remind me about Lufia: Ruins of Lore. Oh my goodness, that game must have done everything in its power to piss me off. I'm surprised I actually endured it for 14 hours.

I agree with Bernhardt on this one. Secret of the Stars not be the most exciting game on the planet, but it's simple, fun, and relatively well designed. Certainly, it feels EXTREMELY dated now, but it's pretty solid all in all.

And, honestly, Ruins of Lore was the only Lufia game I've ever enjoyed. The dungeons were interesting and varied, (and missing a lot of the tedious puzzles that I didn't like in Lufia 2). The job and skill system added a lot of fun too. Ruins of Lore is a bit like Secret of the Stars in the sense that there is nothing spectacular about it, it's just solid.

Quote from: "Dincrest"

Eus- if you're going to go with drastic changes ruining a series, Shining Force by a longshot, man. Any non-SRPG Shining Force game has been terrible.

As a fan of dungeon crawl games, I must say that I enjoyed Shining Soul 2 much more than any of the strategy RPG Shining games. I also thought Shining in the Darkness and Shining the Holy Ark were some of the best traditional RPGs I've ever played (both have top notch dungeon design). I think it's just a matter of genre preference on this: I tend to not enjoy SRPGs.

In any case, Dincrest, it seems that we are polar opposites on what we want from a game. We should definitely avoid making game recommendations for each other.

Games like Shining The Holy Ark, Shining in the Darkness, and Shining Soul I do not see as part of the Shining FORCE series. I see Shining as an overarching umbrella with a bunch of sub-series, kinda like MegaTen.

To me, anything with the Shining FORCE moniker should be an SRPG, and IMO Shining Force Neo and Exa were an embarassment to the series. Not simply because they weren't SRPGs, but also because I didn't think they were very good games, period.

If it's Shining Soul, Shining Star, or Shining Bagodonuts, it can do whatever the hell it wants. But when I see Shining FORCE I have certain expectations. It's like when I pick up a bottle of Jack Daniels. I'd be really pissed off if all of a sudden I take a swig from a bottle of Jack and it tastes like strawberry kiwi lemonade instead of bourbon.

Either way, it's impossible to pick an objective worst RPG. We all have our own subjective criteria as to what we consider shit. In any thread like this we see responses like Quest 64 (an almost universally panned RPG) to FF7 (which was a quality game.) And then you have games like the NIS SRPGs where the reasons people love them are the same reasons people hate them.

Example: the latest Sonic games. I imagine, objectively, they aren't really that much worse than your average Nickelodean-based or other such licensed game. However, this is SONIC, not Spongebob. Sonic games were once examples of great gaming, they shouldn't be reduced to such drivel.

I'll agree, the plots of Sonic games are terrible these days, and the characters look like friggin anatomically-incorrect animatronic puppets. They're even resorting to putting Squaresoft-looking characters into them. Check out the princess and plot footage here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ACSoDvoYvhg

Either way, it's impossible to pick an objective worst RPG. We all have our own subjective criteria as to what we consider shit. In any thread like this we see responses like Quest 64 (an almost universally panned RPG) to FF7 (which was a quality game.) And then you have games like the NIS SRPGs where the reasons people love them are the same reasons people hate them.

Oh, totally. The thread should probably called "Your least favorite RPG ever", but then we wouldn't be able to argue about it as easily.

Oh, totally. The thread should probably called "Your least favorite RPG ever", but then we wouldn't be able to argue about it as easily.

Who are you kidding, we'd still argue over things like completely disregarding how much fun was had with a game because the story went stupid, IE SO3.

And good point Neal, I have no idea how that slipped my mind. :P

Edit: And there can be an objectively worst game in that the game is buggy as hell and, had it not for the bugs, been utterly mediocre and unmemorable. Case in point: Big Rigs. Just watch GameSpot's video review if you haven't.